Study Shows Republicans Favor Economic Inequality

By Eric Zuesse
A study of the voting records of members of Congress, recently published in the prestigious online scientific journal PLOS One , shows that "Republicans tended to support legislation increasing economic inequality regardless of their social status," whereas the tendency of congressional Democrats was in the opposite direction but weaker, because "High status Democrats tended to exhibit less support for legislation that reduces economic inequality than did their lower status" peers. The study "analyzed 13 pieces of legislation, chosen by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS; http://www.ips-dc.org), that were sponsored by members of Congress between 2010 and 2012." The IPS is a progressive think tank that was founded by anti-Vietnam-War academics Markus Raskin and Richard Barnet in 1963, and which has championed anti-war and civil-rights issues and consistently opposed economic inequality...